Mark Luetters
ATLANTA – Georgia-Pacific announced that Christian Fischer, president and CEO is retiring from the company at the end of October and will work to transition his responsibilities beginning in August. Christian joined Georgia-Pacific in 1989 and has held numerous leadership roles. He was named president and CEO in 2017. Mark Luetters, currently executive VP of Koch, with responsibility overseeing several Koch companies, including Georgia-Pacific, will continue in that role while serving as Georgia-Pacific’s president and CEO. Luetters joined Koch in 1989 and Georgia-Pacific in 2006 and, among other roles, was executive VP of Georgia-Pacific building products for nine years prior to returning to a role in another Koch company in 2018. “I want to thank Christian for his 35 years of significant contribution to Georgia-Pacific. “I look forward to… ultimately naming a new, long-term GP president and CEO at some point within calendar year 2026.”
In April 2021, Shreveport attorney Rich Lamb saw an opportunity. Lamb’s family has owned timberlands for several generations. …Fast forward to today. A more than $100 million Southern yellow pine sawmill sits outside of Plain Dealing. …Lamb learned that Canadian companies were relocating to the southern United States to build sawmills due to the unfavorable business climate in Canada. Lamb raised money and recruited Canadian company Teal Jones as an operating partner… Teal Jones acquired 57% of the sawmill, with Lamb and local investors owning the remaining 43%. But in 2024, Teal needed to sell. “Because of the pricing environment, interest rate environment and political climate in Canada, Teal Jones got into financial distress and went into reorganization,” Lamb explained. “They needed to sell their 57% interest to get liquidity.” Fortunately for Lamb and his group, a new buyer was found. Earlier this month, Sumitomo Forestry America Inc. purchased Teal Jones’ stake in the mill.
Texas’ timber industry continues to generate a significant economic impact for the state, with employment and output levels holding steady compared to 2023, said Eric Taylor, Ph.D., a silviculturist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and Texas A&M Forest Service. Market conditions remain largely unchanged from two years ago, with strong demand for sawtimber, coming primarily from pine trees in East Texas. On the flipside, there is an oversupply of smaller-diameter trees, keeping pulpwood prices soft, Taylor said. Roughly one-fifth of the state…provides about 12 million productive acres of timber out of roughly 22 million acres in the region. Most of the land is privately owned… While the Texas timber sector generally operates as a net-importer state, trade with Mexico and Canada accounts for 88% of Texas’ exports and 42% of its imports in 2024, Taylor said. …One bright spot is the growing interest in mass timber…
After funding 5 million seedlings for 289 projects, in 38 states and 4 foreign countries, the Hardwood Forestry Fund (HFF) has decided to voluntarily dissolve its operations. The Board announced its final distribution of $190,000 to the Arbor Day Foundation and One Tree Planted to implement Hardwood Tree plantings in line with the HFF’s mission and goals. The Hardwood Forestry Fund promoted hardwood timber growth, management, education, and environmentally sound uses of renewable forest resources by providing grant funding to partnering organizations. …The HFF was formed in 1990 by members of the Hardwood Plywood and Veneer Association, which eventually became the Decorative Hardwoods Association. …During its 35 years of operation, the 
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Possibly 18 potential buyers have looked at the Pixelle facility before Thursday’s deadline to make offers. And again, the weekly Monday meeting of the ‘paper mill response team’ was in executive session to be free to hash out plans – as reminiscences from employees, as well as rumors about what is happening there and what is being removed, fill the internet. Mill operator Pixelle – based in Pennsylvania, and owned by H.I.G. Capital of Miami, Florida – has been cooperative with corporate tours of the facility that has been largely shut down. …“The deadline set by HIG for purchase offers to be submitted – July 3 – has passed. To date, no information has been shared with local leaders or regional economic development partners regarding a sale or the future of the mill.
Sumitomo Forestry, a prominent Japanese timber and construction firm, completed July 1, 2025, the acquisition of Teal Jones Louisiana Holdings and plans to launch its first timber industrial complex in the US. This complex may also include taking wood waste and turning it into mass timber. …In addition to outside purchasers, Teal Jones-Plain Dealing (TJPD) plans to supply product to its group operations, such as the Fully Integrated Turn-key Provider operations and its residential property and real estate development operations. Furthermore, the company plans to utilize the approximate 40 hectares of unused land on the site to manufacture and sell mass timber and wood products in preparation for future increased demand. “We are also considering processing wood chips and lumber residue generated from the manufacturing process into biomass power generation fuel, bio-refineries and other,” the company said.
Simon Varney pre-ordered extra hardwood from Canada in February when President Donald Trump threatened broad 25 percent import tariffs on goods from that country. The next month, the administration exempted that wood. That left Varney, co-owner of Wells Wood Turning & Finishing in Buckfield, spending more money ahead of time and holding onto extra inventory, eating into cash flow. Ironically, the pearlescent gold pigment the company purchased from its Vermont supplier to make its famous wooden eggs for the White House Easter Egg Roll — a color specifically requested by the president in both of his terms in office — had to be imported from Germany and falls under Trump’s tariffs. “The tariffs were a real concern because they basically would raise our wood costs by 25 percent, which is pretty significant,” Varney said. “The wood manufacturing business is not a high margin or high profitability business.”
CHICAGO — …Milwaukee, our neighbor to the north has become a hotbed for the development of timber towers — tall buildings that use relatively new mass timber technologies that can replace the steel and concrete traditionally used to support such structures. Since 2022, Milwaukee has been home to the tallest timber tower in the world — the 25-story Ascent MKE at 284 feet in height. That’s no Sears Tower, but when you consider that most wood-framed buildings are one to four stories tall, it’s quite an achievement. …For all the stunning achievements that Chicago architects and engineers have accomplished over the last century and a half, there’s still a deeply conservative streak that runs through the city’s building culture. Fire, through several key historical events, is at fault. …So, perhaps it’s not surprising that we now lag many places in the development of new construction with mass timber.
Mass timber is an emerging construction technology growing in popularity in the United States. One obstacle to the gradual adoption of mass timber construction is the limited availability of qualified engineers and designers. Although successful efforts have been made to address research topics related to mass timber design and … adoption as a construction material, little research has been conducted to identify desired student outcomes for undergraduate civil or structural engineering students working with mass timber after graduation. This paper describes the development of an industry-guided educational resource for curriculum development to improve the alignment between undergraduate student outcomes and employer requirements related to mass timber design. …The findings reflect a prioritization of competencies related to the design of mass timber elements and structures, an understanding of material characteristics, the navigation of available design resources, contributions to project deliverables, and the support of sustainability goals. 
Nationwide, women made up 26.4% of the roughly 775,000 people who worked in the paper manufacturing and printing industry in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At pulp, paper, and paperboard mills, they made up 14% of positions. That’s what brought the Wisconsin Paper Council and Ahlstrom — a global Finnish company that produces specialty papers and packaging at five plants in Rhinelander, Mosinee, Kaukauna, De Pere and Stevens Point — gifted $20,000 to establish the program in 2023. In 2024, Ashman received $1,000 from the program after graduating from Appleton East High School. Now, at 19, Ashman works as an intern with Thilmany mill in Kaukauna, helping with environmental compliance and coordinating cleanup efforts along the Fox River. The scholarship was used to help pay for her college tuition. She said what was even more valuable was the internship opportunity she landed at the award-giving reception in 2024.
For 11 straight years, the National Arbor Day Foundation has recognized UAB as a Tree Campus USA. The recognition is for UAB’s work to plant and care for the more than 4,400 healthy trees on campus, while engaging students and employees in learning about and preserving them. UAB has been honored for the past six years with the National Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus Healthcare designation. The national recognition program celebrates health institutions that make a mission-aligned impact on community wellness through tree education, investment and community engagement. The university’s urban forest is managed by the UAB Facilities Division, which maintains data on its trees: An ongoing project includes collecting details on the more than 17 genus and 24 tree species currently across campus. Students played an important part in helping identify and maintain data on the trees.
WYOMING — The future of roadless areas in the Bighorn National Forest and other national forest system lands is uncertain after the Trump administration announced that it would rescind the 2001 roadless rule. …Of the Bighorn National Forest’s 1.1 million acres, 600,000 acres are managed as inventoried roadless areas. In these areas, road construction and reconstruction and timber harvesting are prohibited. Rollins’ action will require environmental analysis, compliance with the Endangered Species Act, tribal consultation and coordination with affected states, according to the U.S. Forest Service. So, at this point, how the proposal will impact forest management is uncertain. …Bighorn National Forest Supervisor Andrew Johnson said he planned to seek a technical correction to the forest’s roadless boundaries from Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz. Johnson said that roughly 50% of the forest’s suitable timber base is located in areas designated as roadless.
For a few years, foragers and fungi enthusiasts around the Midwest have been seeing something yellow. The butter-colored flushes of the golden oyster mushroom are difficult to miss. They bloom on dead or decaying trees, and they have become profuse in states around the Great Lakes. The fungi, which are native to Asia, are good to eat and easy to grow. But a new study shows that they may also be sapping the resources of native mushrooms. And their footprint is spreading fast. “I don’t think anyone would hesitate to call it invasive,” said Aishwarya Veerabahu, a mycologist and doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an author of the 
On a day in early June, state forester Will Phifer carried a pill bottle-orange canister into a southeastern Oklahoma forest, tied it to a shaded tree trunk and left. The area was a confirmed spot for a growing population of tree-killing beetles called emerald ash borers, which likely seeped into the state from the east. The container held what scientists hope is a solution to controlling the harmful pest: more than 100 minuscule parasitoid wasp eggs. “These emerald ash borer eggs are laid on the outer bark of the tree,” Dieter Rudolph, forest health specialist for Oklahoma Forestry Services, said. “So, this wasp will go find them and basically inject an egg into the emerald ash borer egg.” Instead of producing an emerald ash borer larva, the host egg will hatch a new wasp.
ALEXANDRIA, Louisiana — Wildfires and drought destroyed over 60,000 acres of trees in the summer and fall months of 2023 and costing the state $71 million in timber loss. …The wildfires came from record-breaking high temperatures and little to no measurable rainfall that summer. Now, as Louisiana continues to revive its timber industry, there is a renewed interest in the Virginia pine trees that are across the state. But that is also being facilitated by the potential for tariffs on Canadian and Chinese wood and wood products. “The issue has been of Canada and China flooding our markets with their products,” Dr. Mike Strain, the commissioner of Louisiana’s Department of Agriculture and Forestry said. “So, all of that together, I think we’re going to see a strengthening in the timber industry.” …Strengthening the timber industry also calls for more paper mills. “We really need a mill in the Florida parishes,” he said.
On May 23, 2025, Maine’s Governor Janet Mills signed into law “An Act to Require Landowners to Report Their Participation in a Forest Carbon Program or Project”. The new law requires landowners enrolled in forest carbon credit programs or projects to report, on an annual basis, basic data on their participation in such programs to the state of Maine. …The purpose of the reporting requirement is to provide the state with visibility into the emerging carbon credit market and the amount of land in Maine enrolled in such programs. …However, a potential challenge arises if these credits are sold in external markets to offset emissions elsewhere. Maine’s robust forest products industry also has an interest in understanding how carbon credit project enrollment may impact the overall amount of land available for harvest.
FREMONT, Neb. – Two days after a horrific explosion at a biofuels plant left a man and two girls dead, the state fire marshal told First Alert 6 the incident started with a dust fire — and was an accident. “A preliminary investigation indicates an accidental dust explosion occurred during the manufacturing process. Additional investigation efforts are currently impeded due to the instability of the structure,” the Nebraska Fire Marshal agency said in a statement Thursday afternoon. The state has completed its initial investigation of the incident at Horizon Biofuels, which manufactures wood pellets and animal bedding. Occupational Safety and Health Administration , however, remains at the scene and must — by law — complete its investigation within six months. The 
FREMONT, Neb. – Following the dust explosion in Fremont that left one man and two children dead, First Alert 6 spoke with a fire safety expert to explain how that can happen. Fire Safety Expert Sherrie Wilson said a normal fire needs three components: oxygen, fuel, and an ignition source. But with a dust explosion, you need two more components: confinement and dispersion. Wilson said all of that together can cause rapid combustion. Eyewitnesses said they saw multiple explosions at Horizon Biofuels. Wilson said that it is not surprising. She explained that when the first explosion disrupted the dust in a confined space, it made the next explosion even larger. OSHA has standards to prevent dust hazards, but she feels it is not always taken seriously, she said. …
OMAHA, Neb. — 
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Forestry workers could benefit from the use of exoskeletons that support their back and upper limbs, results of a